Blacklisted workers join a protest against anti-union
victimisation on Crossrail. August 2013.
It follows a report in the Financial Times claiming employers have offered victims of blacklisting up to £100,000 in compensation for loss of earnings during the years they were barred from working because they had been blacklisted.
Campaigners have cast strong doubt on the report, saying a small number of companies have offered most victims just £1000, on condition that they drop legal action due to begin later this week and sign a “gagging order”.
Eight major construction firms – Balfour Beatty, Carillion, Costain, Kier, Laing O’Rourke, Sir Robert McAlpine, Skanska UK and VINCI PLC – announced they had set up the compensation scheme last month.
However, critics have warned the proposals will be seen as a “sham” unless all the employers involved in operating the blacklist – 44 of them – agree to take part in the scheme and open detailed negotiations with representatives of the victims of the blacklist, which was used against union health and safety reps and other activists from 1993 until it was closed down in 2009.
Dave Smith, secretary of the Blacklist Support Group, told UnionNews: “It’s no coincidence that this FT report has come out now, just a couple of days before our High Court case for compensation is due to begin.
“The fact is that the companies are still trying to portray this as a small breach of data protection laws, not the massive breach of human rights which it actually is.
“If they think this offer, this scheme, will make us shut up and go away, they are barking up the wrong tree.”
Campaigners say they are keen to enter detailed talks about compensation with the construction industry firms, but that the employers must drop demands that victims sign confidentiality clauses and drop any other legal action.
Unions have also been calling for victims of blacklisting to be offered secure long-term jobs on construction projects as a sign that the companies have finally ended a practice which had been pervasive and widely feared across the sector since the 1970s.
Unite assistant general secretary, Gail Cartmail said: “A cartel of 44 construction employers engaged in a conspiracy lasting decades to ruin lives and destroy families.
“Next year will be the fifth anniversary of the discovery of the blacklist yet progress to get justice for over 3000 workers on the list has been painfully slow.
“It still remains to be seen if just eight construction employers are genuine about negotiating with the unions in a meaningful way to ensure that the scheme does not become a sham allowing firms to shirk their moral obligations rather than properly compensate workers.
“Thousands of lives were ruined just because workers belonged to a trade union or raised health and safety concerns in the country’s most dangerous industry.
“The fact that only eight of the 44 construction firms involved in blacklisting have committed to action is not good enough. The remaining 36 firms cannot be allowed to shirk their responsibilities to workers who they cruelly blacklisted.
“All 44 firms must commit to owning up, paying up, cleaning up without delay.”
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